Prisoner

Life outside the metal bars no longer mattered to her.

    She watched in silence as the same fools who begged the day before, the week before, and the year before, shouted to the gawkers on the street. They all screamed the same phrase, occasionally in foreign tongues no one understood. She used to be one of them. Her first day in the courtyard found her standing with the other hopeless souls, pleading for someone to believe her.

    Not today. Today, she was scheduled to appear before the city and hear her sentence. Today, those ignorant and seemingly deaf crowds would pass judgment on her, deciding her fate. She could only pray for death.

    One of the windows on the stone building suddenly lost its wooden shade. A man with too little hair and too much food in his stomach leaned out of the window and shouted, “03816, report to your cell until summoned.” The wooden shade slammed shut from the inside and silence filled the barred courtyard. Even the shouters were quiet.

    She slowly rose from the rock she was sitting on, aware, yet uncaring, of the eyes watching her as she stumbled to the stone building’s only door. There were whispers and muttered rumors that she had heard a hundred times before. They were wondering what she had done.

    She ignored them, and walked through the now open door, past the hands of some drunken guards. Not that she could have escaped if she wanted to. She ignored them as well, and slowly marched down the cold and dark hallway lined with gray stones. A few sparsely placed torches burned down the corridor, revealing some of the metal doors standing firm in the stone. Hers was not lighted. It stood alone, with no signs of anyone but her entering or leaving. Solitary confinement.

    She waited patiently as the guard fumbled with his keys. The big key, second from the left, the only one with her last three numbers burned into it. He finally found it, cursing the lack of light. The key entered the lock and turned, forcing the old lock to move again. Every time she was so sure it would fall apart, tired of a world without light. But it sighed and struggled one last time, allowing the door to creak open. She shuffled in the tiny, black room and sat in the center facing her guards.

    “Your hearing starts in one hour,” one slurred. The door slammed shut, and she was alone again. An hour, as if she knew how to tell time anymore. At least in the courtyard she could estimate the crucial times of the day. Here, time meant nothing. There is nothing you can do in pure darkness but sleep, or daydream which can be more dangerous than a knife at your throat. She had trained herself long ago to not think of anything. She had heard too many stories of men going insane while in their cells and awaiting judgment.

    The black gloom she called home was completely empty when she was not inside. Even her food dish was kept in the hallway, only passing the metal barrier twice a day to give her glob to sip. No windows, not even bars. The only exit was the metal door, moldy with age and the dampness that never left the air. From the exit, she could take four steps before bumping into the opposite wall. After a while, as it always did, the air grew heavy and difficult to breathe. It was easy to understand why the guards usually allowed their prisoners to sleep outside, under the stone roof with bars instead of walls.

    She began counting her breaths. One…two…thirty-seven…ninety-eight…Repeating numbers caused as much insanity as wondering what lay in the darkness with her. She rose and paced the room, keeping her left hand on the stone walls as she circled. She always hated waiting, even before the bars. Her mind tried to wander back to her freedom years, with no confining walls, real food, beautiful smells, and the sunsets…

    The door banged open, throwing her against the far wall in shock. She had not even heard the lock surrender passage. A torch blazed in what must have been the hand of a blurry shadow. The fire was intense; she could not see.

    “Your hearing has been moved up,” the figure did not speak with the slur of her first guards. “Last prisoner killed himself in his cell. Crushed his skull against the stone walls. Come with me.” She remained still, holding a thin arm against the light. She realized he was waiting for a response.

    “But…” she spoke for the first time that day, “…the light…can’t see …I’ll fall…” Another pause hung in the heavy air. Smoke from the torch leaked in the cell and crawled along the floor to her ankles..

    “I’m not going in that hellhole,” the guard said harshly. “You come out or you’ll be killed where you stand.” His clicking rifle agreed.

    She forced herself away from the wall, toward the deadly sound, “Wait, wait. I’m coming…Just…give me a minute…still can’t see…” Her feet edged forward, trying their best to not trip on the uneven stones. One arm still tried to block the torch’s glare, while the other ran lightly along the nearest wall. When she was finally in arm’s length, she reached for the red light. Something hard and blunt banged her palm away.

    “Don’t touch me,” the guard spat. She mumbled an apology no one understood. She rubbed her injured hand, then lost her footing and fell out the door. Her face hit the stone floor somewhere under her cheekbone. A sharp edge sliced through her thin cheek and blood pooled where she lay.

    Someone’s hand grabbed her threadbare clothes and jerked her to her feet, “We don’t have time for your stalling. Let’s go.” She was shoved down the hall. “Gotta remember to burn this glove.” The guard chuckled harshly as she stumbled through the damp. How could a laugh sound so hateful?

    The blurs sharpened and eventually vanished, but her eyesight did not improve much. Her only source of light came from her following escort. Only stones a few feet ahead could be seen, surrounding on every side except forward. Her shadow stretched to join the blackness before her, and led its owner over, past, under the rocks.

    At a fork in the hallway, she paused. This was new. Now, she understood she was not going to the courtyard. She was being led deeper into the stone building. Her feet remained glued to the floor as she silently shivered. No prisoners had ever returned from the center of the building. Rumors and haunting stories claimed it was the entrance to hell. She glanced around, half expecting to see a three headed dog blocking her path or little red men with mean faces and horns. They must have been hiding in the shadows.

    Something cold and hard jammed into her back, up by her right shoulder bone, the one called the angel wing. The force pushed her to the left and nearly made her lose her footing again. She glanced quickly over her left shoulder to see the guard pointing the rifle at her. Somehow, she was shocked he had a face. As she continued down the left tunnel, she realized there were little red men in the tunnel, and one was following her.